What to eat and drink

Cambodian cooking sits between Thai and Vietnamese and is milder than both: sour, herbal and aromatic rather than hot, built on fermented fish paste, fresh lime, lemongrass, galangal, turmeric and kroeung, the yellow spice paste that underpins half the menu. Chilli, when it appears, is on the side and your decision.

The dishes to order first

Fish amok, a coconut and kroeung curry steamed in a banana leaf until it sets like a savoury custard, is the national dish and the one most often done badly for tourists — a good one is silky and barely holds its shape. Lok lak, cubes of seared beef with a lime, pepper and black-pepper dipping sauce over rice and a fried egg, is the safest bet on any menu. Kuy teav is the breakfast noodle soup, eaten before seven and better than most of what you will pay ten times more for.

Then: nom banh chok, cold rice noodles with a green fish gravy sold from baskets in the morning; samlor korko, a thick vegetable and fish stew that is the everyday family dish; and prahok ktis, minced pork with fermented fish and coconut, eaten with raw vegetables — the true test of whether you have adjusted to Khmer flavour.

Street food, safely

The rule everywhere: eat where the queue is. High turnover means fresh stock and hot pans. Choose stalls cooking to order over trays sitting under a lamp, be cautious with raw herbs and cut fruit washed in tap water at the very start of a trip, and give your stomach three or four days before the fermented and raw dishes.

Ice is generally safe: the cylindrical ice with a hole through the middle is factory-made from treated water and is what almost every vendor uses.

Drinks

Iced coffee with condensed milk is a national habit and dangerously good. Sugarcane juice pressed at the roadside costs almost nothing. Local beer is cheap, light and everywhere, and draught in a plastic cup for well under a dollar is a genuine institution. Palm wine, tuk thnaot, is the countryside speciality — sweet in the morning, considerably more interesting by evening.

Fruit

Mangosteen, rambutan, longan, jackfruit, dragon fruit and half a dozen mangoes you have never met. Durian is in season around May and is banned from most hotel rooms for reasons you will understand within a metre of one. Buy from a market rather than a tourist stall and pay a fifth of the price.

Where to eat

The best Khmer food is rarely in the places with English menus and photographs outside. Ask your hotel where the staff eat, not where they send guests — the answer is usually a plastic-stool place two streets away, costs three dollars and will be the meal you remember.

Common questions